


Mornings after

by SweetBunLove



Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events (TV), A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: Angst, F/M, Mentions of Blood, a bit of a character study, one month and a week after the opera, thats why theres a t rating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-10
Updated: 2019-02-10
Packaged: 2019-10-25 08:35:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17721788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SweetBunLove/pseuds/SweetBunLove
Summary: Kit's in a bit of pain, and she can't forget why.“You’ve changed too.”





	Mornings after

Her hand was hurting. It was the first thing her brain told her the moment she drifted out of unconsciousness.

 

Then it was her shoulders turn to complain as she rolled over to lay on her other side. A look at the clock on the far wall told her it was morning (the window was useless at conveying time, as the curtains had been doubled up to block out all light) and despite feeling as though she had slept on a pile of rocks…Kit was in bed.

It was a bed she had forgotten. One she had never truly expected herself to sleep in again. It was small, low to the ground, and in a room she had cleared out ages ago. Now here she was, back in her childhood home, sleeping in the bed she slept in as a teenager before she ever even met-

She sat up at the edge of the mattress and pushed to too-thin comforter off her body. The blanket would in no way be too thin for the likes of you and I, but she had grown accustomed to a better luxury. She shivered as she stood up, bending back to try and stretch out her tired limbs, and then stood there. No matter how strong and decisive a person may be, everyone comes to a point in life where they are at a standstill. In Kit’s case her standstill was not one to mean “unable to decide on a pizza topping” or “can’t remember if the turn was left or right”. Kit’s standstill was one of being at a loss for a much greater reason. She stood there, at the edge of her bed, with a million words and phrases swirling in her mind.

After an extended moment of debating what to do (and in what order to do it) she dragged herself into her bathroom to begin her morning routine. One of the other residents in the home was more than likely off doing some important thing for some important person. The second resident had left with barely a word (for him, a 3-page note was barely a word). Each step the third resident took felt out of place, as though she shouldn't be walking down the window-lit hallway. Warm orange light passed by her face, illuminating her long nightgown and dull eyes.

The paperboy passing by the window did not visit the Snicket’s porch that morning, and when he returned to the post office, he told a story of a ghost he saw though the glass.

Kit skipped much of her morning. No record playing in the den, no sleepy dancing with her arms around his shoulders, no playful banter while brushing teeth or taking a shower, and even her breakfast was bland. Toast and jam- except when she saw the only jam left in the fridge was raspberry, Kit figured toast was good enough.

‘The worst moments in one’s life comes from when they are absent in someone else’s’ Is a sentence that best sums up the feelings of the young woman very well. It had been a month since the incident that had left her in this position, as well as a week since she was told to take a vacation from her work due to her ‘personal life affecting her ability to concentrate’. So, every morning, she was left with her thoughts and no plan as to what to do. Every morning she entertained the same idea.

‘Try and talk to him again.’

Of course, she has tried this before. It wasn't the first time that she had wanted to speak to him but sadly, the last time that she had… it didn't end very well. ‘He had changed’ she thought.

“You've changed” she said. It sounded harsher then she intended.

One week ago, on her last night before her ‘vacation’, she visited that tired old mansion that she adored with all her heart. When he opened the door, that heart stopped.

“You've changed” she said after a long pause when he asked in a rough voice, “What are _you_ doing here, Snicket”.

He hurt her. In that moment he had hurt her far more than her previous visit where he broke down in a tear-filled rage. That one question hurt her much more than him concluding that she had known about what was going to happen that horrible night.

“You've changed”

“You didn't come all this way just to tell me the obvious, have you?”

And it was true, his change _was_ obvious. In just that one month he managed to go from a strapping young man to someone who looked close to death. He leaned against the door frame as though he couldn't keep himself up, he smelled of booze and smoke, and in the dimmed lights from inside the home kit could make out almost every vein beneath the thin skin on his arms and neck.

“No- no. I came here because…” she stammered, unable to hide the worry for him in her eyes.

“I don’t care what you came here for, just GO-“ and the tall man moved to slam the door- but, as upsetting as this next scene is, I must tell you Kit was quick to act.

She reached out with a “Wait! O!” the moment the door collided with the door-frame, slamming the wood against her hands and pinching her fingers apart at their joints. She couldn't help the hissing squeak that escaped her throat as she heard her fingers _crunch_ at the impact.

Just as quickly as the door had shut, it swung open again- so fast that it hit against its hinges and nearly bounced its way closed once more.

“Fuck- Kit?! You IDIOT” she heard him shout as she drew her hand close to her chest. Four of her five fingers stung with enough intensity to feel as though her hand had been shot. The hand that was gripping her wrist began to feel warm, and, looking down at her wounded appendages, she saw shreds of loose skin and several deep-red splinters from the old door.

“I’m sorry I-“ She looked up at him and saw a sight that made her want to cry much more than the scraping sting from her injury. Olaf looked worried.

She couldn't finish her sentence as a large bony hand grabbed her shoulder with a grip strong enough to hold her in place. The other equally large hand hesitantly took hold of Kit’s injured wrist. Despite his soft touch and distance from the site of impact, the pain shot its way though the nerves in her whole arm. She couldn't tell if she hurt due to the injury, or if it was because this had been the first time he had touched her in a full month. She flinched in pain.

“God damn it K-“ He pulled her inside and rushed her to his couch, not even giving the woman time to protest. When she was sat down, he flicked on a table lamp and knelt in front of her. “Let me see.” There was a bit of panic in his voice, but also a demanding harshness to it that reminded Kit that this wasn't the man she once knew. That he had changed.

As she sat back at home, eating her morning toast, she recalled how her ex quietly picked out every splinter and bandaged each of her fingers. The whole scene was quiet (despite the rumble of passing cars outside and the ticking of the living room’s clock) and neither dared to break it. Kit was afraid that if she so much as winced from the washing of dust and dirt from her gashes that he would change his mind. That he would ask himself ‘why am I doing this for someone I hate’ and, instead of concentrating on gently running his thumb across the uninjured part of her fingers, he would press his nails into the wounds and scrape down to her bone. Kit was convinced, however, that such an action would be far less painful then the current one.

She also recalled that when he was finished, he sat there on the floor holding her hand. They didn't make eye contact, didn't break the silence, didn't even move. For the first time since that night, since their first argument, Kit began to softly cry.

She fought back her tears. She was a woman who believed that tears were meant for the most important of occasions. Her fighting did her no good. Tears as hot as the blood in her veins dripped down her cheeks one by one- still, she made no sound. But she knew he had noticed her silent weakness as he tightened the grip on her hand. It hurt.

Kit finished her toast in the present day and shook her head to try and rid her mind of recalling what happened next. For days she had told herself not to think about it- to forget it- but still her head reminded her of how he had let go of her hand and instead took her cheek in his palm.

Kit stood up and retraced her previous steps back to the bathroom where she ran her red-hot hand under the coldest water money could buy. She refused to think about how, next, Olaf had pulled himself up to be just centimeters away from her face. The cold sting on her untended wounds let her stop focusing on how the man hovered over her lips. Her eyes didn't well with tears too strong to fight when she felt disappointment when he said-

“You've changed too.”

After her hand-washing, Kit was at a loss as to what to do. She tore off the soaked bandages and tossed them away. Blood seeped between the cracks in the scabs on her unhealed and likely infected hand. Kit’s knees didn't crash to the hard bathroom flooring when she thought about how he had told her for the second time that night to leave. Her bloody hand didn't sting with the salty tears she tried to wipe from her face when she remembered that as soon as she exited the door- he had slammed it again.

 

Her hand was hurting. It was the first thing her brain told her the moment she heard the door shut.

 

 


End file.
